Mobile Suit Gundam: Wings of Allegiance

 (Soooo sorry for not posting a lot lately. Many reasons, one of the main ones being some annoying new VPN/filter thing they added at work that makes it impossible to post here. Anyway, I've been hashing out this silly Gundam side story lately, and I wanted to collect my ideas in one place for everyone to see. It's a work in progress, so lots of things will probably change--maybe even the title. I thought it would be cool to set a Gundam side story in my own backyard: Massachusetts!)

It is the year 0090 of the Universal Century. Haman Karn's Neo Zeon has been defeated, and members of that movement are in disarray. The Earth Federation is in the process of reorganizing after the disgraceful Gryps conflict. Neither side is at their best. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a prototype for a new control system for mobile suits called the Allegiance Device that may make pilots obsolete and save lives on the battlefield. The Federation sees the potential in such a technology and has deployed the elite Lapwing Squadron to the nearby Hanscom Air Force Base for testing and to ensure its protection from potentially interested Zeon remnants. Word of this new device has already reached the ears of Neo Zeon, who dispatched their own team to make contact with a local downtrodden remnant soldier to intercept that device for their own purposes. Will the Allegiance Device revolutionize how wars are fought, or simply cause even more needless bloodshed?

Earth Federation's Lapwing Squadron: Earth Federation Air Force Squadron consisting of two Zeta Plus units supplemented by the new Delta Plus. 

Major Players (EFF):

Zaheda Kai Sim (Lapwing 3): 21 years old, 2nd Lieutenant. Newest member of Lapwing Squadron, this is her first proper assignment as a mobile suit pilot. Her mobile suit is the new Delta Plus. While this may be her first assignment, she has shown exceptional prowess and was requested at Khodani's behest to supplement the squadron.

Kai Sim is friendly, but rather anxious about being around such experienced fighters. With this being her first big assignment, she's a bit too obsessed with protocol and regulations and needs to loosen up a bit. She's a spacenoid by birth, having been born in Von Braun city before her family emigrated to Side 6. Joined the Federation out of a desire to visit Earth and fly its skies.
Appearance: Young woman of mixed Iranian/Nepalese descent. Dark hair with a greenish tinge. Hair is typically pulled back. Average height and build, around 162 centimeters. Her eyes are full of youthful optimism that's slowly being drained without her realizing it.

Mobile suit: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus, the new perfected version of the abandoned Delta Gundam design that was eventually adapted into the Hyaku Shiki used by the Argama in the Gryps conflict and first Neo Zeon war. Zaheda is lucky to be one of the first pilots of these brand-new machines.

Martina Khodani (Lapwing 1): Leader of Lapwing Squadron. 35 years old, Major. Veteran flying ace. Flew a Fly Manta throughout the One Year War and was reluctant to switch to mobile suits but adapted very quickly to suits based on the Zeta Gundam. As such, she was involved in the testing and development of the Zeta Plus series. Some say she could be a Newtype, but she thinks the whole Newtype thing is just superstition. 

Much of the Federation brass would consider her "uncorruptible", which was essential during the Gryps conflict; she had no love for the Titans even during their early days. She's known for having the utmost trust in her subordinates and is often seen as a mentor to new pilots.

Appearance: Some would call her "chubby", she'd just say that's more to love. Roughly 170 centimeters tall. Poofy black hair with dyed pink tips. Black South African descent. Despite her extremely friendly appearance, still manages to have a commanding presence that demands respect from her subordinates. 

Mobile Suit: MSZ-006A1B Zeta Plus A1B, a specialized Zeta Plus designed for dogfights and fast attacks. 

Alvin MacDougal (Lapwing 2): 33 years old. Khodani's long-time wingman, the two have served together since the One Year War. Unlike Khodani, MacDougal is far less approachable and not the easiest person to become friends with. He's very quiet and can be very standoffish. However, he's the first person to speak out against questionable orders, which is part of why he's never been given a command of his own.

MacDougal is originally from Australia—specifically, Sydney, and if he weren't on assignment in space at the time, it's quite possible that he would have been many of the millions lost during the fateful colony drop that destroyed his home. He holds a special hatred for the hypocritical Zeons that show such reckless disregard for Earth while hiding among it.

Appearance: Lean and fit like a marathon runner. 183 centimeters tall. White guy with short brown hair and eyes that match. Has a very strong, authoritative chin that would mean something if he had any actual charisma. 

Mobile Suit: MSZ-006A2 Zeta Plus A2 "Howitzer," one of only 3 Zeta Plus A2 units still in service, Alvin's machine is painted in a stunning charcoal black with green highlights. Due to its power demands, the High Mega Cannon equipped on its head is used very sparingly.

Minor Players (EFF):

Pavel Doychinov (Hanscom Base Commander): 48 years old, Colonel. Salty war horse. Dislikes the assignment he's stuck with as he feels this idea will go nowhere. Finds the humidity of the spring/summer in Massachusetts insufferable.

Runli Zhang (Hanscom mechanic): 80 years old. Machine hobbyist by nature. Hates seeing beautiful mobile suits senselessly damaged. Often lectures Lapwing Squadron on proper maintenance and how to avoid wear and tear. May be old but is easily the spunkiest mechanic you'll ever meet.

Sebastian Orlando (Hanscom Operator/Dispatcher): 30 years old. Communications specialist, joined the forces because he flunked out of college and had nowhere else to go. Not the biggest fan of the job, but he does it well enough. Assigned to this position because his brief college stint was at MIT.

Major Players: Zeon/Neo Zeon 

Ilsa Feldmeier (Zeon Remnant): 27 years old, Corporal. Sniper. Was a pilot cadet hastily trained on the new Gelgoog Jaeger in the waning days of the One Year War before being thrown into battle. She was to be sent to the European front via Komusai, however the craft was shot down upon breaching the atmosphere and crash landed in the Nashoba Valley of Massachusetts. She was the only survivor. Not long after landing, she learned the war had ended, and nobody was coming to recover her. She's spent the past ten years taking up odd jobs to eke out a meager living while maintaining her Gelgoog for mercenary work.

To say Ilsa is jaded would be an understatement. She began her military career with the intent of fighting for spacenoid liberation, like most Zeon soldiers. After finding herself stranded after barely any training, she learned how hollow that was. Any trace of the bright-eyed, optimistic cadet has been buried by a decade of survival instincts. She's hoping the big pay day from this Neo Zeon job might be just what she needs to finally get her life together.

Appearance: Lanky blonde-haired Scandinavian woman. 176 centimeters. Surprisingly strong, despite her thin build. Her piercing blue eyes do little to mask her many abandonment issues and trauma. Still has many scars from the impact that brought her earthside that never faded away. Her uniform is in surprisingly decent condition, mainly because it hasn't been worn often in the past decade.

Mobile Suit: MS-14JG Gelgoog Jaeger in camouflage coloring, equipped with a special beam rifle. Has held up well for over a decade, but is still a decade-old machine, nonetheless, and is showing some wear. 

Torrun Cho (Neo Zeon): 23 years old, Lieutenant Junior Grade. Young and brash Neo Zeon commander assigned to capture the control unit. Extremely determined and unwilling to admit to fault. This mission is his first time on Earth, and unlike Zaheda, he is not impressed. He finds it disgusting and misses Axis's sterile conditions. He desires little more than to finish this mission and get back to space.

Torrun's mother is Admiral Hana Cho, captain of the Endra-class battlecruiser Tendra, and it's somewhat of an open secret that he only got his position due to nepotism. He immediately dismisses this notion, however. Obsessed with protocol and regulations.

Appearance: Young man of pan-Asian descent, primarily Korean. Typically has the kind of expression that says, "I'm telling my mom!" whenever he's the slightest bit upset. 170 centimeters. Average male build. Short, regulation hair cut. Insists upon keeping his uniform clean and tidy.

Mobile Suit: AMX-104 R-Jarja in blue and gold, kept in excellent shape.

Bruno Barusso (Neo Zeon): 38 years old. Experienced veteran, has been piloting mobile suits during the early days of the One Year War. Was among those who escaped to Axis following the end of the war. Doesn't mind taking orders from a young upstart like Cho, however that may be because he's there simply to keep the little twerp from screwing up—a glorified babysitter. It doesn't hurt that he's served with his mother ever since she saved his life at the end of the One Year War and feels he owes her an eternal debt of gratitude.

Bruno is surprisingly laid-back despite being in the company of a pretentious young commander like Cho. He's the type who can make field rations into something actually edible and will raise spirits by playing guitar for the rest of the squad. He knows that moments of rest on the battlefield are something to be cherished.

Appearance: Muscular, tanned Iberian (Portuguese/Spanish) descent. 186 centimeters. Short, curly hair. Cuts the sleeves off his uniforms to let the pythons show. Torrun hates this.

Mobile Suit: AMX-101 Gallus-J, tan and olive. Seen some action since he likes to fight his enemies up close and personal.

Minor Players (Zeon/Neo Zeon):

Hana Cho (Neo Zeon): 48 years old, Vice Admiral. Commands Neo Zeon's 4th Fleet from the Endra-class Tendra. She was the captain of a Musai during the One Year War and saved Barusso while evacuating A Baoa Qu--his damaged Rick Dom may have otherwise been overlooked. Has a stern demeanor that keeps her troops in line, and her fleet is know as one of the most efficient in all of Neo Zeon.

Other Noteworthy Players:

Eric Fielding: Head of the Allegiance Project. Not a scientist, but a businessman. Best described as a "tech bro" who is more interested in using technology to make money than any humanitarian purpose. Brash, self-centered, and disliked by most around him, he's never found a problem money couldn't solve.

Carly Fielding: The actual "brains" behind the Allegiance Device at MIT. Younger sister of Eric. She designed the system as a means to save lives on the battlefield, but understands that it might not be combat-ready. Very shy, and has always lived in her brother's shadow.

The Boston Patriots: Boston's self-appointed "guardians." Four wanna-be protectors in cobbled-together mobile suits who do their best to keep the city "safe," for lack of a better word. The team is led by Scott Holden with his subordinates Isabella "Izzy" Lennox, Matthew Walsh, and Patrick Sheehan. Since the city is rarely under any threat, they spend most of their time running around local bars getting drunk and causing a ruckus. 

Settings:

Hanscom Air Force Base: Air Force Base used by the United States of America in the old century, situated approximately 20 miles northwest of Boston, Massachusetts. It had since fallen into disrepair due to lack of use but is now being used as the primary base of operations for Lapwing Squadron to guard MIT's new project. Much of Hanscom's equipment is old and not designed to interface with modern Federation equipment, so Runli Zhang has a lot of it jury-rigged. Hanscom will likely never be a permanent settlement, and if it does, it will only be used as a satellite base for the nearby Newport base in Rhode Island.

Boston: Capitol city of the old state of Massachusetts. Due to being on the Atlantic coast of the country, it was not subject to as much of the damage as the west coast was following Operation British during the One Year War. However, the recent colony drop on Dublin has caused flooding along its coast and left irreparable damage. Much of Boston's economy is reliant upon its many institutions of higher education, which have existed for centuries. 

Nashoba Valley: Massachusetts valley famous for hosting a ski resort in the old century, long-since closed because of climate change. Current crash-landing site of Feldmeier's Komusai, it's her "Home away from home" in a sense. She keeps her Gelgoog and other military paraphernalia here while living in the nearby town of Littleton. Littleton, like many towns in the valley, fell into economic disarray when the ski resort closed down, and is now very sparsely-populated. The extreme proximity to Hanscom is what got Ilsa picked for this position by Neo Zeon leadership. (I'll most likely add onto this later, I just wanted to publish this somewhere I can share it with folks. For now, enjoy!)

Shut Up and Watch the Show: Of Female Jem'Hadar and Gelgoogs That Look Like GMs

 In about a month, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy makes its premiere. I'm looking forward to it. It may be tonally different from typical Star Trek, and that's actually okay with me. I want Trek to do different things. Sometimes, it'll work and be awesome like Lower Decks or Prodigy. Other times, it'll be utter trash like Section 31. They can't all be winners! I'll be giving it an honest shot like I do with all shows in the franchise, and I'll be going in with positive expectations.

She looks like she could kick my ass, and I'd thank her for the pleasure.

One character that's caused an annoying amount of discourse is Gina Yashmere's character Lura Thok. According to pre-release information, Thok is half-Jem'Hadar, half-Klingon. The character is also female, as you can probably surmise. As stated in Deep Space Nine, the Jem'Hadar are a genetically engineered race of all-male soldiers who age rapidly and reach maturity in only a few weeks. This allows their Dominion masters to create platoons of soldiers in a fraction of the time it would take for most species to even complete basic training. DS9 also stated that these beings are entirely male--after all, no need for sexual reproduction in an engineered species designed solely for combat, right?

Of course, people seem to be forgetting that Academy takes place over 800 years after the end of the Dominion War, and, well, a lot of things can change over the course of eight centuries. The character is clearly part of Starfleet, and the Federation has a known history of strict guidelines on genetic manipulation: DS9 showed us what happens when you simply don't disclose the fact that you've had alterations in the case of Doctor Bashir. Poor Dal from Star Trek Prodigy had no idea he was made up of over a dozen different species and he would've been excluded from joining the Academy were it not for Admiral Janeway's intervention. While it's very possible the Federation has since altered its policy on genetic alteration, it's just as possible that the Jem'Hadar have been further altered themselves.

Never forget that Third Remata'Klan, one of the most memorable Jem'Hadar characters, was played by the same guy who played Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld.

The Jem'Hadar's loyalty to the Dominion was controlled via Ketracel White, a drug their bodies needed in order to function. I don't see any White containers on Thok, so clearly, that hurdle has been jumped. I believe there are one of two possibilities: One, the Dominion and/or the Federation modified the species to include sexual reproduction as it's easier and to propagate a species that way instead of relying on engineering; or two, the Jem'Hadar were originally like any other species in the galaxy and were modified into a race of soldiers and were now reverted to their original state. Maybe they shared a common ancestor with the Tossk! There is, however, a simple way to find out what the answer is...

You watch the damn show.

It's as simple as that! There is very clearly an answer as to why Thing That Was Once One Way Is Now Another Way, and you can find out by watching the thing! Quit being some irritating pedant on the internet whining about canon and instead, watch the thing and make your own judgement. Whatever the show is doing, it's not violating canon, it's adding to it. 

This isn't even the first time this happened with Star Trek in recent memory. Remember the excellent season 1 finale of Strange New Worlds, "A Quality of Mercy"? When previews went up, people were going, "duh, they can't be doing Balance of Terror yet, it's too early" or "why are they ripping off Balance of Terror", and all I could think was, gee, maybe we should watch the episode? And it turned out to be a time travel/what-if story, where they asked the question "What if Pike was in command of the Enterprise during the encounter with the Romulans at the Neutral Zone?" The answer was: everything went horribly wrong for everyone except Pike.

I'll never pass up an opportunity to talk about how much I love this thing.

I've already spoken at length about the GQuuuuuuX Gelgoog and why I love it, and it still bothers me that people get mad that it looks like a GM and don't understand why! Once again, the explanation is in the show. It even has a different model number, like come on, people. It's clearly the same suit in name and role only. But of course, people who only pay attention to the latest model kit drops and not the actual show itself complained, because why actually watch the show? I realize that Gunpla is a great hobby and you don't necessarily need to immerse yourself in the worlds of Gundam to enjoy it, but it helps to have the actual context for why things look the way they do.

We've come to think of the lore of our favorite sci-fi and fantasy properties as these monolithic, unchanging things, when that can't be further from the truth. They're always changing, always evolving. Sometimes they realize things work, and sometimes they realize things don't. Star Trek's Trill changed drastically between their first appearance on TNG and the introduction of Dax on DS9, and I think we can all agree that was for the better. Early TNG even stated that the Klingons were part of the Federation, and by the time the episode "Sins of the Father" rolled around, the writers explicitly decided to abandon that because having the Klingons not be a part of the Federation opened up more ideas for Worf. Sometimes, you need to just throw some established canon out the window to tell better stories, and at the end of the day, isn't that what matters?

A classic from Poorly Drawn Lines.

So much of this comes from a sheer lack of imagination on the part of fans. They don't want things to be different. They want it to be exactly the way it was how they remember it. I find that sad. Isn't half the fun of seeing new trailers and information about new entries in your favorite franchise speculating about what things might be? Sure, too much speculation and fan theorizing can lead to disappointment and sometimes outrage when the final product doesn't meet those expectations, but it's better to actually engage instead of just complaining that something may have changed before you've even seen how.

Preserving and Embracing the Cheese vs. Giving in to Nostalgia

 Recently, I decided I wanted to play Resident Evil for the first time in my life. Yes, the classic video game series that coined the term "survival horror" is one I've never played. It's nothing against the series itself; horror just isn't my cup of tea. Back in the 90s, I was still knee-deep in cartoony platformers like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ape Escape, and Croc. This past Halloween, I said screw it, let's get spooky. I downloaded the original Resident Evil on my PS5, and when I say original, I don't mean one of the remakes, I mean the Director's Cut (the version with the good music, thankfully). I wanted to experience the game in as much of its weird, 1996 gory glory as possible: low-quality live action cutscenes, poorly directed voice acting with bizarre translation, and combat that can be best described as frustrating. But I loved it. I loved the whole experience. Sure, I could have played one of the vastly improved remakes, but I wanted to experience the game how it was meant to be enjoyed originally. I wanted the cheese.

Resident Evil has had plenty of remakes and remasters of the classic games over the years, which have been critically and commercially praised. I'm glad these exist, but they're not exactly what I'm looking for. They have better controls and graphics, sure, but the charm and weirdness aren't there. One that did keep the charm and weirdness of the original was the stealth-dropped remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that came back in April. It kept almost all of the original voice acting, only substituting when necessary, and kept most of the original cheesy line reads like "Stop right there, criminal scum!" that we've come to love since the original released almost two decades ago. Most of the new voice recordings are acted just like the 2006 original, and even the famous outtake still remains in the final game. It's the kind of update to the original that doesn't exactly replace it but instead complements it. You can still buy a commercial copy of the original without exactly needing to go to the aftermarket. It isn't like the original Star Wars trilogy where you have to resort to fan edits to watch the theatrical cuts in high definition.

While creating The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni cited the idea of getting all the secondary characters from the old Kenner Star Wars line while their older brothers would get the main characters as their main inspiration. We joke a lot about these B-List characters now, but back in the days of the old Kenner line, these guys were a big deal of many kids' collections. When I think of a lot of these characters, my mind doesn't go to the weird sci-fi names the characters have, but instead the simple names like "Snaggletooth" and "Hammerhead" from the toy packages. I think about the scene from E.T. where Elliot is showing E.T. all of his Star Wars toys. As such, I find most modern versions of figures of the "Cantina Creatures" from the original Star Wars kind of boring and frustrating, with so much attention being put into designs that were originally meant as background filler and worldbuilding. For the children of the 70s and 80s, the toy versions are what mattered, because that was Star Wars to them. When Hasbro announced a set of The Vintage Collection figures painted like the original Kenner toys, I had to get those. I may not have been around when those original toys were released, but the kitsch, the charm of Walrus Man is far more appealing than Ponda Baba. These aren't toys of characters we saw on screen--these are toys of other toys. That's cheesy, and that's awesome.

Transformers Missing Link is quite possibly one of the most astounding toylines on the market right now. The idea was to simply take the classic G1 Transformers of the 1980s and give them modern articulation. Now, that original Optimus Prime you had as a kid can actually do the pose on his box art, and all the cool stuff you imagined him doing! The line has also been used to put out a previously unmade figure in the form of G1 Arcee, which is nothing short of spectacular. The figures don't compromise any of the original design details while integrating parts that originally needed to be removed for transformation and die-cast metal content is exactly where it used to be. Add some Diaclone color schemes that never made it into the Transformers line, and you have a line that combines a traditional reissue line with something new, and you have the best of both worlds for people who can't afford to buy or find the originals. Speaking of The Best of Both Worlds...

Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard featured the reunion of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast after the Star Trek Nemesis 20 years prior. It was long-awaited, and absolutely delightful to see Jean-Luc, Will, Worf, Data, Beverly, Geordi, and Deanna reunited on the bridge of a beautifully restored Enterprise-D. This came with a catch, however: most of the new characters introduced in the first two seasons of Picard like Agnes Jurati, Soji Asha, and Elnor didn't make the cut, not even for cameos. I found this very frustrating, since interactions between Soji and Data, and Elnor and Worf could have been extremely profound. Instead, the show was more focused on getting a cast of 70+ year-olds together again for one last romp through space, against the Borg... again, despite the show featuring a rogue group of Changelings from Deep Space Nine as villains for most of the season who were both extremely cool and compelling.

We all cheered when this happened, let's be real. I sure did.

Don't get me wrong, I was so very excited for this show. It brought me to tears on many occasions. But after all was said and done, it felt a bit hollow and cynical, and the fandom reaction to it didn't help matters. Everyone was all, "This is what new Star Trek should be! Terry Matalas should be the new showrunner!" and whatever. While I enjoyed the season as a one-off thing, I was disappointed that it shoved so many of the series' new ideas to the side. It's also worth mentioning that season 2 of Picard had the same writing staff as season 3, and season 2 was not well-received. I found season 2 conceptually interesting, but an overstuffed mess of too many ideas without enough time devoted to any one of them. (Hey, I just described GQuuuuuuX!) So, you got another show with different characters already, which makes it clear that people only wanted to see the TNG crew again. Remove the existing characters we love, and the facade is broken; all that remains is a hollow, lifeless show designed to appeal to nostalgia heads. 

One of the most frustrating toylines on the market right now is the Star Wars Retro Collection. This line has little to do with the previously mentioned Vintage Collection figures besides the classic Kenner style cardbacks and branding. This line started out as reissues of classic Kenner figures from the 70s and 80s, getting the classic figures back in the hands of collectors old and new. I loved these, because in addition to the reissued figures, they made a few new ones previously missing from the vintage line, like Grand Moff Tarkin--you know, the actual villain of the original movie! But for whatever reason, they decided to keep going with these retro-style figures, and have since made them for the recent TV shows like The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Acolyte; the latter of which is completely baffling because the crusty old fans who like these figures are the ones who complain loudest about lesbian witches and "muh canon". It's one thing to fill in the gaps missing in the original toyline, but I genuinely don't see the purpose of making figures of characters introduced after 1985 in the Kenner style, at least officially.

This, to me, feels like cynical nostalgia baiting. 

I think if you're going to do something "vintage style", you should make it in the vintage style of the actual toy you're representing. The Star Wars Retro Collection line also includes figures from the prequels, which is just bizarre to me. Why not style them like the contemporary Power of the Force 2 figures? Those are "retro" now. Do we only care about the nostalgia of 80s kids? Don't answer that, I know that's all they care about. You don't think I want some reissues of Transformers in Generation 2 packaging? God, I miss that glorious cardback style.

Remember when we used to get NEW Power Rangers shows instead of just more Mighty Morphin' stuff? I realize the relationship with Super Sentai is weird now (especially with Sentai ending) but there's absolutely no reason why we couldn't have entirely new costumes, monsters, robots, etc. for a series. Instead, we're getting MMPR again. I really don't think the kids are going to care about a 30-year-old TV show even with some horrendous shorts made with terrible new costumes. Power Rangers, like Transformers, Star Wars, Star Trek, and so many more, will always be there, but it's important for it as a franchise to move forward, especially if it's one aimed at kids. 

Revisiting the past is fun, I'm not denying that. I'm a sucker for O-ring figures, and the recent O-Ring Revolution of figures from companies like Delta-17 and Grind Stone Toys has only amped it up. The problem is you can't only have stuff made in the image of the past. It's okay to glance backwards, but at the same time, you must continue to look forward. Glancing backwards should serve as a reminder of how far you've come, not a mission statement that things were better back then, because in many cases they weren't. This obsession with "things being better back in the day" is what has led us to this current awful political climate, where those in power who always had things better are now mad at the fact that they must share the spotlight with people different from them.

It's even worse when it comes to new intellectual properties. We hardly see anything new made that doesn't just homage the past. Companies are too skittish to make new IPs because it isn't guaranteed to make good money, and when they do, they seldom put the effort into it to make it worthwhile. Look at Starfield. The idea of Bethesda doing a new spacefaring RPG sounds really cool, yet it's had no pop culture penetration. I knew a lot of things from Elder Scrolls long before I played any of the games, and I don't think I've heard any memes or references to Starfield.

It's a damn shame, and AI is the zenith of it. Contrary to what the shills and tech bros may think, AI does not create anything new--it merely compresses existing art into a slurry and craps out something resembling the product which it's supposed to resemble. I fear that if we all give up creating new things, even things within the frameworks of franchises and IPs that already exist, we'll have given in to the true slop factory and lost what's truly made us human.

GQuuuuuuX and Worldbuilding Through Mechanical Design

 Worldbuilding is one of the key aspects of any science fiction or fantasy work, and it's something that I feel too many people get too bogged down in. The original Star Wars (the movie itself, not the trilogy as a whole) did an excellent job with it for the most part. We learn how ill-equipped the Rebels are compared to the Empire simply by looking at their respective machines: the Rebels X-Wings and Y-Wings are all dirty and used, while everything used by the Empire is shiny and new. Five seconds in the Mos Eisley Cantina shows that humans are but one species in a highly diverse galaxy, although it does still bother me that all of the Rebels you see in the movie are human--it almost makes it look like the civil war is a solely human dispute. Regardless, while many aspects such as the Clone Wars, the Jedi Knights, and so on were established by dialogue, the bigger picture understood the classic mantra of "show, don't tell".

With a series like GQuuuuuuX, you have something different: you have a twist on a classic series, one that changed one detail in its story that led to a wildly different timeline from what we know, and how it succeeded in showing us this different world with its mecha design, and how it was more successful in that regard than the actual worldbuilding done via dialogue in the series itself. Obviously, this type of worldbuilding wouldn't work in a completely new Gundam timeline or a new mecha series in of itself, and that's fine. That's what's fun about multiverses. I've already spoken about how much I love the gMS-01 Gelgoog and its role in the alternate UC, so I'm going to talk about a few others and how they factor in here.

First, the Rick Dom. The first glimpse I caught of it was during the Beginning movie in the theater, in Challia Bull's colors. It's in the background and in the shadows, so it's hard to see that its colors aren't the standard purple and black but instead two-tone blue, a la Ramba Ral. Most of us just assumed these were the standard mass production colors since its appearance in those colors was very brief in the movie as well, so we thought little of it. After Gaia and Ortega showed up in the series proper, however, background material revealed that like the "Colony Attack" Rick Dom II from Gundam 0080, the "standard" Rick Dom colors in GQuuuuuuX was actually two-tone green.

"Kentucky Dried.": For folks who find the biscuits too juicy, period.

At first, I found this a bit odd, but then I remembered a slightly obscure piece of unspoken lore from the original series that was largely born out of reusing animation models. You see, the Gouf was blue because that was Ramba Ral's personal color, just like Char's was red. The same was true for the Dom, with the Black Tri-Stars using that black and purple color scheme on their mobile suits. While there's plenty of other material that contradicts it, the typical explanation was that these color schemes were retained on the mass-produced versions suits as tribute to the ace pilots who made them famous and fell in battle against the feared Gundam. In an alternate timeline where there was no Federation "White Devil" defeating the likes of Gaia, Ortega, and Mash, there was no need to color the Rick Doms black and purple in tribute to them, especially since they were dishonorably discharged from the Zeon army. It can be deduced that if there's a mass-produced version of the Gouf in the GQuuuuuuX timeline, it would likely not be blue, since we see Ramba Ral alive and well at the end of the series.

They put the "cannon" in cannonfodder!

The Light-Type Guncannon, or simply "Light Cannon" is another great example of simple worldbuilding that requires no additional explanation. With the RX-78-02 captured by Zeon and the RX-78-01 destroyed, the Federation had no choice but to go all-in on the limited data already collected by the 01 Gundam and the already-completed Guncannon for their mass-production mobile suit. Remember, the key to the war wasn't just Amuro's success in piloting the Gundam, it was his plethora of combat data that was used in the mass production GM units that made them so successful. The Light Cannon even has a Core Fighter, something the GM lacked, and it's STILL less effective than the GM because of that missing data. And before anyone brings up the many GM prototypes seen in 08th MS Team or whatever, remember that GQuuuuuuX was working purely with original UC properties from 1979 to 1989--anything later did not count. Seriously, there are way too many obscure Gundam variants in the One Year War now, it makes Amuro's exploits feel kinda pointless by comparison.

Shutter shades if they were cool.

The two "Twelve Olympians" machines, the Hambrabi and Psycho Gundam, also provided a slightly less direct look into the universe. Neither of these machines did too much on-screen worldbuilding, mind you, but their supplementary material offered quite a bit. The model number for the Hambrabi in this timeline is ORX-139, as opposed to RX-139. The "O" in the prefix indicates that it came from either the Augusta or Oakland Newtype labs, much like how the "M" in the Psycho Gundam's model number indicates that it came from the Murasame labs. Both of these machines appear a full two years earlier than their Prime-UC counterparts, with the Psycho Gundam featuring the design and model number of its second iteration. You'll also notice that the Psycho's face eschews the traditional Gundam face design for something closer to that of the Guncannon or 01 Gundam--after all, why would the Federation want their big scary, machine wearing the face of the mobile suit that so humiliated them during the One Year War?

Allegedly, the Hambrabi can transform, just like its prime counterpart, but it's inefficient and time-consuming, unlike the almost instantaneous transformation of said machine. This could be chalked up to one of two explanations: one, the Hambrabi was originally prototyped as early as UC 0085 but was shelved because its transformation was too time consuming, and required further R&D. Two, the genius of the Federation's "man from Jupiter", Paptimus Scirocco, is the one who cracked the nut of said transformation system. This brings up a small problem, however: why does this Federation machine in a timeline where the Federation lost have a Zeon monoeye? In Zeta Gundam, many of the Titans machines had monoeyes for a real-world reason and an in-universe reason. The real-world reason was due to simple shorthand--because of conventions established by the original series, the audience knew to associate monoeyes with bad guy mobile suits, even though some of the suits in Zeta did break this tradition. In-universe, many of the engineers who worked on the machines used by the Titans and Federation as a whole at the time were formerly Zeons. That's why the Hizack exists: it's essentially a Zaku on the outside, but a GM on the inside. This doesn't make much sense in a world where there's no shortage of work for Zeon engineers.

Which brings me to my next point. See, while GQuuuuuuX did a spectacular job explaining the fun little bits of its mecha lore, the stuff weirdos like me (and probably you if you're reading this) love, it did an absolutely TERRIBLE job explaining EVERYTHING ELSE in its new, altered Universal Century.

The show started off well enough, with plenty of mystique and intrigue. We got enough basics laid out for us, and while some folks didn't like the early focus on Clan Battle, I found the idea interesting because it was so wildly different from anything in Prime UC, and it was an excellent way to piece together what the war was like. It only became a problem after episode 7, "Machu's Rebellion", when elements of the new UC and the Zeon Civil War took a front seat and cracks started to form. Ideas would be introduced and quickly forgotten. We'd be left with more questions than answers. 

If I'm remembering things correctly, the show doesn't even tell us that Sayla is Char's long-lost sister.

Remember when Sayla made her awesome debut in her custom Light Cannon in the Gundam's tri-color paint job, and at first, we thought it was Amuro in the pilot seat? Then, we learned it was at the same point Char did! Holy crap, what a moment! A universe where the Federation's legendary "White Devil" isn't Amuro Ray, but Sayla Mass? How did this happen? WHO KNOWS! The show doesn't tell us! At all! All we know is, she survived the war and somehow returned to Zeon and became their new ruler because she's the daughter of Zeon Deikun and she's working with Ramba Ral? Can I see that story? Please? I bet some Zeon citizens have huge issues with her, given that she was a freakin' feddie soldier.

Admitted, one Glemy Toto is one too many...

During episode 8, they mention a rumor about Gihren Zabi having an army of cloned Cyber-Newtypes. This idea is exciting! Immediately, my mind went to the Puru (yes, I'm spelling it that way) clones from the latter episodes of Double Zeta. Could we be seeing her? Perhaps a dive into her origin? Was she genetically engineered from the start? Or, maybe Glemy, a character who was originally intended, and is often implied to be, the illegitimate son of Gihren and a woman with high Newtype potential? Oh, what's that? It isn't mentioned ever again? Oh, okay.

Every Gundam series has some sort of giant mega death weapon thingy, and of course, GQuuuuuuX was no different with the literally Lovecraftian Yomagn'tho: weaponized Newtype hax taken to the extreme. I'm fine with this concept, it's suitably ridiculous. Nyaan powers up this enormous weapon and fires from one side of the Earth to the other and wipes Space Fortress A Baoa Qu off the Earth Sphere in one fell swoop, a cosmic glow lighting up the skies below for all to see. How does the Earth Federation respond? They don't! You would think that even the defeated Earth Federation would go, "Hey, maybe we should send a Magellan-class battleship with a couple mobile suits up to space to uh, see what's going on up there. Might be a good idea, don't you think?" Nope! The only time the Federation even slightly poked their heads up after the war was when we saw the previously mentioned "Twelve Olympians", aka, the "Not Titans", who apparently carried out some kind of poison gas attack... somewhere! Like they did in the main UC timeline! No context as to why, though! That would have been too interesting, I guess. God forbid we see the next-generation Federation mobile suits, too.

And going back to Nyaan, it was pretty obvious from the start that her name was an alias. She's a refugee, sure, but... why did she change her name? She came from Side 2 on a mobile suit, but... when? What kind of mobile suit? Was it Federation, Zeon, or something else? Does she have living family? 

And don't even get me started on Shuji! The heck even was his deal? Was he like, the "Other Side's" Amuro? Was he the one originally fated to pilot the Gundam before Lalah started to muck around with causality? Or was he just some dimension-hopping shmuck who got pulled into all of this? The idea of Lalah losing it and creating the new universes is farfetched, but one I can accept given everything else in the series, but at least plan things out before you write the series. It was very clear, and if I recall, they even admitted as such, that they were making this up as they were going along.

The last episode did one of the cardinal sins of anime tropes: introducing a new, as-of-yet unnamed concept in the eleventh hour that takes its name from mythology or literature. Pop Team Epic famously made fun of. Apparently, the GQuuuuuuX has a trapped Newtype soul inside it, or something, called the Endymion system! Who's the Newtype in question? Uh, it's Amuro from "The Other Side", I guess? When Challia mentioned "Endymion", I immediately got a bad feeling, because I knew where they were going with it. In Greek Mythology, Endymion was shepherd and lover of the moon goddess Selene who was placed into eternal sleep. The name may also sound familiar as Prince Endymion was the Sailor Moon character who was reincarnated into Mamoru Chiba, aka Tuxedo Mask, who was played by Tohru Furuya, the same actor as... Amuro Ray! An actor who famously, in 2024, was caught up in an extremely gross domestic abuse scandal involving him and a fan who's half his age (before you freak out, that still makes her like 30) and seriously, the more you learn about it, the worse it gets. It'll make that scene of the GQuuuuuuX's cockpit "arms" embracing Machu seem... very creepy. They even brought him back, admittedly just for one line, for this scene, which was incredibly jarring considering he's been dropped or recast in all of his other roles.

Look, I think why I'm so frustrated here is because I was so enamored with the concept of GQuuuuuuX. It had and still has so much potential, and yet the series dropped the ball harder than a space colony dropped on Sydney. The excellent work done by Hideaki Anno with the flashback story portions in episodes 2 and 8, and Ikuto Yamashita's masterful industrial mecha designs clash jarringly against Kazuya Tsurumaki and Yoji Enokido's poorly planned overall story. (I may have some of the credits besides Yamashita wrong there, but my point stands.) I wanted GQuuuuuuX to be a new version of the Universal Century for a new generation, a remix of the story and characters we love like a Gihren's Greed campaign gone off the rails, but instead we got a half-baked detour of only 12 episodes that just felt unfinished and unrealized. The most I can hope for is that someone else will take the reins of this universe in the future, be it in the form of a manga or anime spinoff. There are good ideas here, they just needed more time to gestate.

The Fallout TV Series is Awesome and I Can't Wait for Season 2

Season 2 of Fallout is coming soon, and I'm excited for the return to New Vegas! When the show was first announced, I'll admit that I was skeptical. While I enjoyed the Halo series, I know I was in the minority, and as you probably guessed from my post about Fallout 4, I'm not the biggest fan of how Bethesda has approached the franchise from a story standpoint. I was afraid that the TV series would be more of the same, especially when preview screenshots of what looked like the Prydwen were shown--yes, the giant airship is cool, but the Brotherhood having such an audacious display of power sort of goes against their original ethos as isolationist, technology-hoarding pricks, does it not? Yes, they had airships in Fallout Tactics, but that game was (key word: was) of dubious canonicity. I'm not here to talk about canon, that's tedious as hell, and a story for another day. Nah, right now, I'm here to talk about why the show is awesome and why it worked.

Video game movie and TV adaptations are pretty hit-or-miss, and there are a lot more misses than hits. Street Fighter: The Movie is goofy and fun, but for every one of those there's Borderlands: The Movie, Doom, and so on. Sure, there are the Sonic movies, but that's a franchise I'm not much of a fan of so I won't go into that. One recent example that I did really like was Detective Pikachu. They did an excellent job adapting the world of Pokémon into live action. The world was vibrant, recognizable, and more or less took place within the world of the main Pokémon games! That last part impressed me. They were able to make a movie adaptation of a big video game franchise, have it appeal to mainstream audiences, and set it within the world of the game itself. Such a thing was once thought impossible.

Given the Legion's attitude towards women, I have a bad feeling about this, and I think Lucy does too.

The Fallout TV series is set in 2296 in California; the first time the series has returned to the state save for some small slivers of it in New Vegas. It has three protagonists: Lucy, a naive but kind-hearted vault dweller from Vault 33; Maximus, a loyal Brotherhood of Steel Squire who may not be the sharpest tool in the shed; and The Ghoul, a cowboy mercenary who, over 200 years ago, was a blacklisted Hollywood star named Cooper Howard. Each character allows the audience to see a different perspective on the wasteland: Lucy is the audience surrogate, experiencing it for the first time. Maximus has spent his whole life here, living as a member of one of the most iconic groups in the franchise. The Ghoul/Cooper gives us flashbacks of what life was like before the war, while his "present" self became pretty much everyone's favorite character. Yeah, I'm thirsty for The Ghoul, what of it? It's about The Vibes, man. He's got The Vibes.

I wonder if they'll actually acknowledge who the original "King" actually was...

Most importantly, the show became a perfect entry point for newcomers to the franchise and didn't lean too heavily on fanservice, for the most part. One of the biggest problems with Fallout 3 and 4 is how it features things that are quintessentially parts of "West Coast" Fallout, despite taking place in the greater DC and Boston areas. Super Mutants, Radscorpions, and Cap currency all existed as parts of the west coast Fallout world for a reason. Super Mutants were made at the Mariposa Military Base, scorpions are barely seen outside of desert environments, and bottlecaps existed as currency because they were an indicator of fresh water. Fallout 2, which took place 64 years after the first, used an actual currency system minted by the NCR, since that game took place entirely within that faction's territory. 3 and 4 should have had their own unique currencies, but I guess that would've required too much creative thinking.

The Goodest Boi

Despite being set in prime classic Fallout territory, we don't see Radscorpions or Super Mutants. The most we see of the latter is a hand-drawn wanted poster for one. We see the skull of a Deathclaw in the final scene of the series, and that's about it. I appreciate the restraint. It made it even more satisfying when we see the perfectly recreated props like the Stimpacks, Pip-Boys, and laser rifles. They even had the Water Chip from the first game, although I would argue that this bit doesn't really go anywhere and feels like little more than a callback. 

What's also important is the tone of the series. Fallout deals with a pretty serious subject matter, yes, but it never shied away from comedy. The TV series absolutely nailed it. Scenes where we learn the true nature of Lucy's father are properly shocking and heartbreaking, while others like when Lucy gets exiled from Vault 4 had me laughing my ass off. The series understands the nature of the wastelands: it's dangerous, it's unforgiving, and it's weird as hell.

Now, if there is one Nit with which I have to Pick, it's about Shady Sands. No, it's not about the fact that they nuked the NCR's capital, nor is it about a freakin' date on a chalkboard which could have easily been an error. It's actually about the location. Shady Sands is supposed to be much further north than Los Angeles. It should be noted that it actually does slightly shift between the first two games, but not that drastically. I'd really consider this to be pretty minor if it didn't bring up other questions like, how come nobody mentions the Boneyard? Is it in San Diego now? It's a retcon, sure, but just establish it as one to answer some questions. That's all I want.

One direction the show chose that really excited me was who fired the first nuke. When it comes to mutually assured destruction, it does not matter who fired the first shot. One side launches their warheads, so does the other. When they're in the air, nothing else matters. So, who fired the nukes? Simple. Vault-Tec did. I remember hearing on the ShoddyCast that this was an idea from the Fallout movie pitch of the late 90s/early 2000s, and I thought it was genius. What better way to sell the Vaults than to drop the bombs yourself? They have a vested interest in keeping the Sino-American war going.

Where's season 2 going to take us? Honestly, we can only speculate beyond "Holy crap it's New Vegas". The region looks like it's a mess, and it's very possible that Caesar's Legion won the war. This is easily the worst possible outcome in the game itself. I can never bring myself to side with the Legion. I always gun down slavers in video games unless it has the potential to break the game (looking at you, Morrowind). That said, I think from a storytelling standpoint, the Legion winning the Battle of Hoover Dam has the most potential. What happened to Courier Six? Did they side with the NCR, Mr. House, the Legion, or were they Independent? Did they die during the battle? What of Caesar's tumor? Did the NCR win the battle, but was it a pyrrhic victory and the Legion came from Arizona with massive reinforcements? I hope the show answers these questions and more.

Fully expecting a crisis of conscious for Maximus.

The trailers for the show also showed what looks like Vault 0, a location originally from Fallout Tactics. I've never played Fallout Tactics, but it appears this game, or at least ideas from it, are now part of the Fallout canon. I'm actually here for this. While the idea of the Brotherhood being more than isolationist technology hoarders never sat right with me, I think the idea of them attempting--but failing--to be that is interesting, so I'd like to see how that plays out. Vault 0 is also likely the headquarters of Vault-Tec, so I'd like to know what they've been doing there for the past 200 years.

New Vegas had so many characters and locations that will be super exciting to see. In addition to the Legion, the posters show what looked to be Ghoulified members of the Kings. That's a story I want to hear. We also see what looks to be Victor--if he's here, does that mean Mr. House is alive? We did see him in the flashbacks in season 1. What about Yes Man, is he installed in House's mainframe? And if we see Yes Man, will he be played by Dave Foley? God I hope so. Rumor also has it that Macaulay Culkin is playing a "mad scientist" character--could it be Arcade Gannon? Maybe Fantastic?! Will we see any of the companions like Veronica, Cass, Boone, or maybe Marcus? I have so many questions, and while I do worry I may have my expectations set too high, I think the series will deliver on most of them. Not every question needs to be asked, and not every question needs an answer. 

I'm curious where Fallout TV will go after season 2. Will we go further into Fallout's past, and visit Vault 13 for the first time since Fallout 2? Will they go to the midwest? That's an area barely explored in Fallout lore. In fact, where was that Enclave facility actually located in the first season? I want to see them as the bad guys again. The X-series Power Armor in live action would be downright badass. Regardless of where it goes, I'm excited for it all. It seems to me like when Fallout has actual writers, it's really good! How about that.

It's Still a Gelgoog, Gundamn it!

It is the year 2025 of the current era, and the new Gundam series called GQuuuuuuX is on the horizon. Upon hearing rumors of this series taking place in an alternate Universal Century where Zeon won the One Year War, my interest is piqued beyond belief. The preview movie comes out in Japan, and it turns out the rumors are true. Char in a red Gundam? Mobile suits with awesome industrial designs? The Federation mass-producing the Guncannon as their mainstay mobile suit? I must know more! One thing that really caught my eye was reading that upon capture of the Gundam, Zeonic's engineers reverse-engineered its technology to create the next generation of mobile suit, while canceling their existing plans. I frantically look up all the art I can, while cautiously avoiding any big spoilers for the most part. 

The day finally comes, and there I am in the theater with the Gundam fam I recently assimilated back in 2023 and my buddy Mike. I'm also high off my ass because I wanted to truly experience the Kira-Kira. I'm enjoying the hell out of myself, and we get to the scene that would become the first half of episode 8, "Falling on the Moon", where the Federation attempts to drop Space Fortress Solomon on Zeon's moon base Granada. Char deploys the forces from the repurposed Pegasus cruiser, now painted in Zeon greens and named the Sodon. The forces are mostly Zakus and Rick Doms, easy to identify for even a casual fan. But alongside them was something I couldn't pin down: it looked like a GM! It had a turquoise visor, with beam pistols in each hand. I turned to Mike and whispered, "What is that?!" and he wasn't sure either. Regardless of the name, I knew that this had to be the mobile suit Zeon developed based on the Gundam's data.

This is one of only two times where the Gelgoog is seen in its standard mass-production colors.

No information on what this machine was called, or even its model number, was revealed before it appeared in the series proper. We caught a glimpse of a new machine in the trailer for the series, which looked not unlike that mobile suit I saw in the theater, now sporting a color scheme like the classic GM. Many of us speculated on what this machine was, some thinking this was the GQUC's version of the GM, but I knew that wasn't possible. Sure enough, episode 4 of GQuuuuuuX rolls around, they make their appearance, and we hear the line:

"That's a Gelgoog! Those are mass-produced Gundams!"

Of course! It makes perfect sense! Of course Zeon would repurpose the name they were going to use for their existing beam weapon-equipped mobile suit. Why wouldn't they? Mobile suit names, especially Zeon ones, are total nonsense. "Gouf" is taken from "gufu", which is Japanese onomatopoeia for laughter. "Asshimar" is taken from "aa, shimatta" which basically means "ah, damnit!" or "oh, shit!" The new version of the Gelgoog even came with a new model number, gMS-01, indicating that it's the first mobile suit Zeon derived from the Gundam. It may look completely different from the prime UC's Gelgoog, but its role in Zeon's military is the same. Heck, while the Prime UC Gelgoog is this big, beefy boy, these ones are small, smaller even than a GM!

This came from the pre-series trailer, before we knew its name.

Despite it being pretty obvious when you think about it for more than five seconds, there was an utterly bizarre backlash to the design. People did not understand why it looked this way. "Why is it called a Gelgoog when it's clearly a GM?" Well, one, it's not a GM, because GM is a Federation name. Second, even accounting for how different the designs in GQuuuuuuX are from their prime counterparts, it doesn't have enough design commonalities with the Gundam to be considered a GM. Third, did you not catch the part about Zeonic canceling their existing next-gen MS plans in favor of mass-producing the Gundam? The gMS-01 makes perfect sense from a narrative standpoint. 

In the most literal sense of the word, the Gelgoog is a GM, assuming we use the term "GM" to just mean "mass produced version of the hero mech". That's what I've been using as shorthand for years now. Some examples would be the Ichinana from Mazinger Z Infinity or the Grapearl from Gurren Lagann. I've always been a fan of these kinds of designs. It feels like a logical evolution of the hero designs, and visors just look cool.

That said, I think Bandai/Sunrise/Khara made a mistake by having the first Gelgoog that's seen in full in the series be the one that's colored like a prime-UC GM. This is probably the biggest source of confusion, and I do have to wonder that if they gave it an all-new name, nobody would have been confused. When you see the machine in Zeon colors, even with a visor, it's pretty clearly a Zeonic suit. It even has the characteristic "snout" all of Zeonic's machines have.

The Zeon colors make the snout more visible.

I think what ultimately bothers me here is the lack of critical thinking. If it looks like a GM, it must be a GM, right? Well, what about the GM Camouf? That isn't even pronounced the same way. (Oh, by the way "GM" is pronounced "Jim" and the GM in GM Camouf is pronounced "Gem" with a hard "G" sound DO NOT @ ME.) There's a bit more nuance to the naming of vehicles. If the US stole the prototype for the Soviet MiG and made their own next-generation aircraft from that design and called it the Tomcat, would it still be the MiG? No! It would be the Tomcat, because the name is just what they thought would be cool at the time. That's all there is to this. Also that's probably historically inaccurate but you get the gist.

At the end of the day, the gMS-01 Gelgoog is a design I fell in love with at first sight. I'm a sucker for industrial design mecha, mobile suits with visors, and I love painting kits of Zeon suits. This thing gave me all three in one package. It should come as no surprise that I've already built and painted two of the damn thing. Between this and the F80 Gunraid, 2025 was a good year for fans of visored mobile suits.

I'll get into my thoughts on this series as a whole later, but for now I just wanted to get this one off my chest. I love you, tiny Gelgoog.

Fallout 4 Still Pisses Me Off

 Another Fallout Day has recently come and gone with little fanfare and no new announcements, not even those Fallout 3 or New Vegas remasters we've been expecting. We're getting a tenth anniversary release of Fallout 4, because apparently that's just gonna be Bethesda's new Skyrim. I only got into Fallout and Elder Scrolls back in late 2014 and early 2015, the former being because my friend bought Henry bought me New Vegas for Christmas. I was more or less brought into that franchise kicking and screaming, but once I was hooked, I was hooked BAD. You know the quest "There Stands the Grass", the one with the mutated plant monsters in Vault 22? I was up until 6am trying to beat that quest. That was the moment when I realized I'd found something special. As soon as I finished New Vegas for the first time, I just had to boot it up and play as a new character.

My birthday rolled around a few months later, and another friend bought me Fallout 3. Maybe I was spoiled by New Vegas, but I found myself not enjoying it was much. I knew some things would be different, what with it being an earlier game and all, but the story didn't click with me. Also, keep in mind that I was playing the Game of the Year edition, so I was able to do the logical thing and have Fawkes shut down the Project Purity reactor, because that ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. Anyway, I didn't hate the game, I did enjoy it, but something about it felt off. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did New Vegas. Finishing New Vegas made me want to start the game over again, while finishing 3 just made me want to start New Vegas again.

Despite this, when the announcement for Fallout 4 came another few months later, I was pumped. Admitted, I lacked a next-gen console to play the game on and PC gaming isn't my bag, so it would be a while before I'd play it. But man, it looked awesome. It takes place in Boston! A place I go to all the time! Filled with landmarks I recognize! You'd think a game like that would blow my ass away as soon as I played it. 

I think you can guess where I'm going with this.

I got my first taste of the game while I was recovering from surgery in February 2016. I enjoyed some of the mechanics. Customizing weapons is a lot of fun, treating power armor as a vehicle is cool (in theory at least), Nick Valentine is a great character, and it's good to see the Brotherhood of Steel back to being a bunch of bastards. But just like 3, something still felt off. It was missing that special sauce. I couldn't quite figure out what it was until I went and played the first two Fallouts.

Fallouts 1 and 2 are Bonafide classics. I can see why they're so beloved. Elements of them haven't really aged well (Fallout 2 doesn't have a single female companion besides the one potential romantic partner if you're playing a male character) but the stories are great, the combat is satisfying, and the humor is always good for a chuckle. One of the best aspects of the game was how it approaches morality. Sometimes, the most ethical thing to do isn't the smartest. You'd think repairing and optimizing the leaky reactor for the Ghoul citizens of Gecko would be a good idea, right? Well, repairing it is, sure, but if you optimize it, it puts a huge target on their backs and after the game ends, they get overrun and enslaved by nearby Vault City (there's supposed to be a way to have them form an alliance with Vault City but in classic fashion, it's bugged and can't be achieved).

What made me like New Vegas so much is how every choice felt logical. Character A might want me to blow up Character B, but what happens if I let Character B know in advance? Could we work something out? An alliance, perhaps? It may be an uneasy one, but it would be better for the people living in the wasteland for sure. I felt like the destiny of the Mojave was in my hands, regardless of which faction I threw my lot in with. Basically everyone sees Caesar's Legion as the enemy (with good reason) and the NCR, while inept, serves a purpose. No matter which outcome you go with, it makes sense. The Legion always has to go because they're a dangerous threat not just to New Vegas, but the wasteland as a whole. The NCR has been waging war with them for years, and a peaceful solution is not in the cards.

Let's look at the factions in Fallout 4: The Minutemen, the Institute, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Railroad. The Minutemen are the unambiguous "good guys" you always work with and they go along with whatever you do. The Institute is the Commonwealth's boogeymen who live underground and send Synths to the surface to do.... something (I'll cover that later). The Brotherhood of Steel want little more than to annihilate the Institute and their abominable synthetic humans and all who harbor them. The Railroad rescues synths, wipes their memories, and lets them live their lives as normal humans. Now, if you're like me, the logical option here would be to have the Minutemen, Institute, and the Railroad form an alliance to take down the Brotherhood of Steel, right? Well, guess what, you can't do that, even though you get to become the head of the freakin' Institute in their quest line.  Nope, all questlines require you to destroy the Institute (unless you take that questline) and whomever else opposes you, save for the Minutemen. Peace is not an option.

It doesn't help that the Institute's end goal makes no sense. Okay, they made perfect synthetic humans (and animals) that are indistinguishable from the real deal. They act just like human beings, so they send them to the surface to replace key figures and infiltrate organizations. But... why? What makes a bunch of post-apocalyptic survivors such a threat to them? On top of that, the Synths themselves are treated merely as property, barely above your garden variety Protectron robot. The flesh and blood they may be made from is artificial, but it's still flesh and blood, nonetheless. It's hammered home that these synths are superior to humans and yet they aren't treated as such. So why bother making them? You witness Father dying of some illness, yet they don't make a new Synth body for him? Shouldn't the goal be to create immortal synthetic bodies for mankind? Bodies that can survive in the post-atomic wasteland? 

Imagine the game that would create. On one side, you have the Brotherhood of Steel, who believes technology should only serve man, and becoming one with technology is abominable. On the other, the transhumanist Institute, who wants to upgrade humanity to survive in the harsh, unforgiving wasteland that now engulfs the planet. They're two sides of the same coin, with the Brotherhood being humans clad in power armor, while the Institute appear human but underneath, they are made of advanced technology barely understood by the masses. Each has an almost cult-like devotion to their way of life. Both sides have their points, but they're fundamentally incompatible with one another, and in the middle are the poor survivors of the wasteland just trying to get by without being eaten by Deathclaws or Radscorpions. 

This take on the Institute is not unlike The Master and the FEV from the original Fallout. Obviously, the Institute wouldn't be kidnapping people... or would they? Maybe there'd be a rogue element within the Institute kidnapping people and forcing them into synthetic bodies. Maybe they'd be inserting spies in the ranks of the Brotherhood. These are ideas worth exploring. Maybe Bethesda would be able to do the same if they'd hire some actual freaking writers on their games. 

You'll notice I didn't talk about any of the gameplay parts of Fallout 4, like the Power Armor being severely overpowered, the overemphasis on crafting, or Preston Garvey telling you that "another settlement needs your help" for the thousandth time. That stuff isn't what bothers me, really. Fallout is an RPG series, and while the core of it is obviously the game mechanics, it's story that truly makes or breaks an RPG. It's important to care about why you're doing what you're doing in those kinds of games. It isn't like, say, Doom, where all that you need to know is that you're a pissed-off space marine kicking demon ass from Hell and back again. I want to care about the people of the wasteland. I want to know that what I'm doing is making a difference to them.